Indonesia's DVI Team Helps Identify MH17 Victims

Jakarta, July 25 (Antara) - The six-member Indonesian Police`s DVI team arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday to help identify the victims of the crashed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which included 12 Indonesian nationals. The team`s six members were Dr Antonius R. Castilani, Putut Tjahjo Widodo, Dr D. Aji Kardomo, Dr Sumy Hastry Purwanti, Dentist Ahmad Fauzi, and Dentist Daniel Agustinus, Danang Waskito, the first secretary of the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague noted in a statement on Friday. In order to coordinate the activities of the team, they met Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands Retno L.P. Marsudi while in the European nation. The DVI team joins an international investigation team for the identification process of all victims being carried out in Korporaal van Oudheusdenkazerne, Hilversum, the Netherlands. The victims` bodies placed in 40 coffins were flown from Kharkiv, Ukraine, by the Netherlands` Hercules C-130 and Australia`s Boeing C-17. National Police Chief General Sutarman earlier in Jakarta remarked that the police`s DVI team and several provincial police personnel had conducted an ante-mortem examination by collecting data and DNA samples from the victims` family members. The Indonesian police`s DVI team members had garnered global recognition when they had successfully identified the victims of Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, which had crashed on Mount Salak in West Java several years ago, Sutarman emphasized. Spokesman of the Indonesian Police Brigadier General Boy Rafli Amar stated in Jakarta on July 23, 2014, that a team of seven personnel led by DVI`s Director Senior Commissioner Anton Pastilani had left for Ukraine on July 22, to assist with the identification process of the Indonesian victims. The ill-fated Malaysian plane, which had taken off from the Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on July 17, 2014, and was carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, lost contact while flying over the eastern Ukrainian airspace, in a region controlled by pro-Russian rebels. Later, it was discovered that the plane had been hit by a surface-to-air missile over the war zone. Among those who had perished in the crash were 12 Indonesians, 15 crew members, three infants, 192 Dutch nationals, 44 Malaysians, 27 Australians, ten Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian, and one New Zealander.